I had a customer awake me at 6.30 this morning to see if he can come and collect a stove from us today at around lunchtime I know we have long opening hours but 6.30 am that’s just not right.
Anyway after my head had come round I rang him back and it turned out he worked nights and had not thought about the time and was keen to get stove fitted today, I said it was no problem and he duly arrived at our factory at 12.30 just after I had finished packing away all this mornings delivery of Fireplaces which we have every Wednesday and as normal for this time of year we had 2 box vans full of goods.
After looking at our stoves in the showroom part of our factory he chose the Tiger Multi Fuel Stove and a 1000mm length of flue pipe.
Now I did try and advise him as I do with all our customers to have the Tiger Plus as it has an improved air wash system and is a better stove but he was happy with the Tiger and away he went a happy man.
Don’t get me wrong the Tiger is a great stove and at £300 a real bargain too but for an extra £25 it makes sense to have an improved model but who I ma to judge some people prefer the Tiger Classic look without the Air wash grill at the top.
So we do answer the phone sometimes out of hours and we always answer emails when we get them but please don’t ring at 6.30 am as I am not always awake or I am out delivering and you do not want to cross Rhian at that time of the morning, we do open at 9am and will answer phone till 8pm to answer all your queries or to arrange collections and viewings just please contact us.
Archive for September, 2009
Early Morning call to collect Gallery Fireplaces Tiger Stove
Wednesday, September 30th, 2009Rogue Fireplace Fitter is Discovered again don’t let it be you
Tuesday, September 29th, 2009Rogue fireplace fitters have surfaced again today and one of our customers let her builder talk her into fitting a Henley and Brompton Limestone Package for her after we had delivered it and she has rung me today for some advice.
Now let me tell you I am not qualified to fit fireplaces for gas or solid fuel but I have so much experience in supplying fireplaces I can offer fitting advice with my eyes shut.
1st Bit of advice GET A QUALIFIED PROFESSIONAL TO DO IT
2nd bit of advice SEE 1ST BIT
There advice dispensed do not under any circumstances let a none qualified fitter touch your fireplace please use Gas safe registered fitter for gas use and Hetas registered fitter for solid fuel.
The builder had fitted wooden battens behind the fireplace to hold it off the wall to meet the limestone surround. Wood I heard myself cry it is for solid fuel use (real fire) is he an idiot I replied not only had it not backfilled it he had bodged it.
Anyway problem is now solved we have sorted her out a proper fitter whose work we have seen and is someone we know we can trust.
Luckily our customer had not paid the builder for this work yet as he was due back to start something else in her house now that is a stroke of luck I have told her to report him to Trading Standards its not the 1st time we have heard of rogue traders even we have had fitters ring us offering to fit our fireplaces who are not qualified to do so these are told instantly no we don’t want our good name putting to their work.
We offer a great service and expect fitters we recommend to do the same so if you do have a fireplace supplied by us ask us if we have any fitters details for the area you live in we normally do and don’t forget always please use our 1st bit of advice for fireplace fitting
What are our best selling Fireplaces this month
Monday, September 28th, 2009Just back in the office after busy day and I have been to my sons school for a presentation where he has become Pupil of the Week I am so proud of him he is only four.
Thinking of this brings me on to our own Best sellers of the month which is again upon us as we near the end of the month, we normally keep a running total of which items are selling best but we are doing work on our website behind the scenes so this has been disrupted which means I will have to go through all our sales invoices to find out which Stoves and Fireplaces have been the best selling this month.
We can normally get this info at a click of a button from our admin section as it records all website sales and we keep a tally of phone orders and those purchased at our showroom but it should be easy with Rhian doing our book keeping everything is so in order.
So I am intrigued to find out what our best sellers are this month as I have no idea myself I hope its something unusual it always makes it exciting I know we have sold a lot of Henlow limestone Surrounds this month so hopefully it will beat the Brompton for the Limestone Fireplace of the month.
As always we are honest with our winners and never feature an item unless it has been selling better than the rest (unless of course if it was featured last month)
Right I am off to process some invoices and arrange deliveries to Devon (again) and the North West as we have busy delivery week and have vans here there and everywhere giving our great range of fireplaces new homes. If things carry on I may have to employ another driver and buy another van.
Bye for now
Afternoon Off and we still sell loads of Fireplaces and Stoves
Sunday, September 27th, 2009Had a lovely day at work today I got back early today and have been to a white collar Boxing event that one of Rhians school friends was fighting in also we knew a few of the other fighters too.
Apart from that the phone has not stopped ringing today with customers ordering Stoves and Fireplaces from our website.
Yesterday was stove day and we failed to complete selling all our stoves by 9 hours with a customer ordering the Tiger Stove this morning at 9 am to complete the set but that’s the fireplace trade or you it would have been funny selling them all in one day.
Stuart has had a good day too delivering around London with his 8 drops and was back on time with £20 in tips wish I had done that run now.
He really is one of the most friendly people you will ever meet and nothing is too much trouble for him all our customers love him and I am proud for him to be a member of our team.
That’s what we are at Cast Fireplaces a close knit team who would not operate without each other that is what sets us apart we are all family apart from Daz our Timber mantel man who has worked for me for 15 years so he is very close to us all and is like a member of family too.
We are a family run Fireplace business with family values that you will not get from any other company on or offline so why would you order anywhere else.
Today we have sold all Firefox Gallery Fireplaces Stoves and Tiger Plus
Saturday, September 26th, 2009Today is stove day Saturday we have sold every type of Firefox stove we sell and a Tiger Plus we only now need to sell the Tiger Stove to complete the full set.
This is very strange we have sold 1 of each up until 16.30 when I am sat writing this article I am not sure if this has happened before but we have been putting a lot of optimisation work into the range of stoves we offer and this has been showing results over the last few weeks.
I am really pleased we have increased our stock levels of all stoves we supply to keep up with demand this now sees us with around 40 – 50 stoves in stock at any one time which as you can imagine takes up a fair amount of room but we do double stack them to avoid us tripping over them.
Over the last few weeks we have seen a lot of people collect our stoves as they can simply be loaded in the crate into most hatchbacks and all estate cars so our customers are being canny and saving the delivery charge.
In this times of financial turmoil it makes sense to shop around for the best price and to be able to come and view and then take away sets us apart from our competitors.
We are proud of the way we operate our business and will never charge people to collect like we discovered a company doing last month so keep your money in your wallet and come and collect one of Cast Fireplaces great range of Tiger and Firefox Gallery Stoves we really do have them all in stock to view then take away along with 100s of fireplaces in stock
Can we mix and Match to create a Limestone Fireplace Package?
Friday, September 25th, 2009Can we Have an arched fireplace with different Limestone Mantel is a question I was asked today and the answer is yes.
The packages we sell on our website are only a guide to give customers some ideas of the type of fireplace packages we can supply. There is no end to the combination of these fireplaces that can be “Mixed and Matched” to suit the look you are after.
You do not need to buy these packages separately if we do not show the item you want on our website please just contact us and we can work out a price for you whether you want it for Gas, Electric or Solid Fuel Use anything can be done.
Today we have taken quite a few local orders which are to be delivered next week so I have decide to deliver them Thursday or Friday next week whilst Stuart goes to Devon and Cornwall and the North West Run again (he’s only been back from Liver pool etc for 2 hours)
I know how to choose my delivery jobs but I do need some time in the office next week as we are very near to completing website update with all our new products and categories its being tested now ready to go live after I have finished adding new stuff.
This has involved some major work by us and web company too get the result we wanted and the way we want our website to run making it the most simple to use online just wait and see I am sure you will be impressed.
Saturday morning is very busy with appointments at our factory and showroom for collections and viewings so if you do wish to come and view our items give us a quick ring as we only do viewings by appointments as Mr Cook found out today when he visited our Langley Mill Factory and it was locked up, luckily for him I was on my way back from Nottingham with more Multi Fuel Stoves so I met him there 15 minutes later and he ordered Firefox 12 Multi Fuel Stove I asked him how he knew we were there and it turned out His son who owns Broad Meadow Developments is a regular customer of ours so more customer Recommendations you really can not beat word of mouth advertising.
How do I know Stove Kilowatt Output for my Room
Thursday, September 24th, 2009How do I choose the correct size stove to provide the heating requirements I want for a particular room.
All the stoves we sell have a heat output figure that is normally measure in Kilo Watts there is another which is BTU that is normally used for Radiators.
All our stoves on this website are measured in Kilowatts as are most stoves to be found on the market you will not get the figures mixed up don’t worry.
There is a simple equation we use to determine the output of a stove need to heat a specific room size all you need to do is measure your room in Metres and supply us with the Height Length and Width to determine Cubic room size.
We always ask how many windows and doors and whether it is well insulated, we are not Lloyd Grossman from thru the keyhole and being nosey, we just need to divide room size by insulation level to get the required heat to warm that room.
To view this equation and to work out the size of stove you need use our Stove Output Guide so you can simply follow it.
If the guide says you need 4.5Kw to heat a particular space and you are now browsing our stove selection don’t be tempted to buy a 5KW output stove as these are rated at maximum outputs. Go for something with a 6kw or 6.2Kw output.
Why I hear you ask?
Yes it will heat the space you require but the stove will be running flat out stoves are like cars you get better fuel efficiency running them at a slower burn so put plenty of fuel on then reduce the air intake so the stove burns slower you will get the same heat from a larger stove running at 2/3rds of its capacity as a Smaller stove running at maximum.
You will find the wood or coal does not burn as fast making it cheaper to run and you can spend more time relaxing than filling the wood basket.
Also if we do ever have a serious winter you always have the extra bonus of being able to increase the heat output for very cold nights.
All this talk of stoves has made me want to light mine I really do love a real fire there is nothing nicer
Cast Fireplaces are stumped over Fire Fender Question
Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009Somebody ringing me asking if we do wooden fenders has stumped me today.
A fender is an item that sits in front of the hearth as a decorative item I have seen many fancy ones in cast iron and brass and plenty of antique ones in wood.
We said we could manufacture one fro oak to match the hearth size but then she explained she wanted barley twists and it to be very ornate.
This is not the sort of job we can do so for the first time in a long while we could not help them out I pointed them in a few directions as to where they could get this made.
Collection of Stoves again today has been popular with two people collecting both Firefox 5 stoves with 500m flues. One customer was from Stoke and the other from Stone strange that there only a few miles apart and they arrived 20 minutes apart so it made me smile thinking two separate people who don’t know each other both driving down the A50 with identical stoves and flues in the back of their cars how odd.
I have been busy at the Factory this morning unloading vans full to the brim with fireplaces that we have on order. A mountain of gas inserts have arrived too so I have been there since 8.30 am this morning unloading and stacking, and loading our smaller van for trip around the East and West Midlands on local deliveries tomorrow.
Rhian has again been toiling in the office and I was given a pile of orders to arrange delivery with along with a chicken sandwich when I returned at 2.30pm.
So I am planning our Delivery Runs now for Friday and the weekend.
I am not sure where this month has gone again it is already the 23rd and we still have not got round to adding new products to our website I may have to persuade my brother who has done work for our website before to lend a hand I keep reminding him that’s what families are for
Fireplace Customer reads Article and Books late Viewing
Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009No sooner had I posted yesterdays article we had a builder from Nottingham ring us as to whether he could visit our showroom to look at the Tiger Plus Stove at 7.30 pm.
He said he had read our articles section and that we offered late viewing and if possible could he come today.
That was fine with us we had not got anything planned for a rainy Monday evening so I met him there showed him all the stoves we have in stock in our showroom worked out the heating requirements he needed and he chose the Tiger Plus and a 500mm length of flue pipe.
This was all loaded straight into his van and away he went into the night taking away brochures to show his customers what we offer.
It is always pleasing to know customers and people viewing our website read our articles section regularly as we do spend a lot of time writing blogs and articles to keep people informed of what we are doing at what we have coming up on special offer.
One such item is a new pine timber surround and Regal black arched fireplace that we have bought and will be listing at a ridiculous give away price for both solid fuel and gas use, we only have 12 sets of these in stock and we expect them to move very quickly on this never to be repeated offer so keep your eyes on the left hand column of our website and it will appear there over this weekend.
All these offers and items we want to offer at sale prices will appear in a new section on our website Clearance Corner We do have lots of items ready for this section which will offer Gallery Fireplaces at trade price so be sure to keep a look out for this new section.
I wanted to call it Credit Crunch Corner but it sounds like yoghurt so we went with clearance corner, which is what we are doing with this section.
We have huge delivery arriving tomorrow so I am off to the workshop to make even more space and stack things even higher with the forklift bye for now
Surprise Collection Of Gallery Fireplaces Firefox 5 Stove
Monday, September 21st, 2009Mondays are always busy days in the office and I am always around to help Rhian out answering the phones and emails whenever I can.
I was sat at my desk this morning adding to our website update some new text they required when there was a knock on the door.
I answered it expecting to see our postman with a pile of letters but it was a man who had come from Wirksworth to collect a Firefox 5 Stove.
As most of you know we only do viewings by appointments only but he said he didn’t realise that and had just turned up.
This was not a problem for me as I was in and not out delivering etc so he followed me to the factory and he collected stove and paid cash.
Another happy customer who said he wanted to fit today ASAP as its dropping cold I am not sure whether they have the same weather in Wirksworth which is only a few miles from us but its been really nice here in Ripley.
So please be aware I am not always available for viewing as I’m out delivering during the week too helping Stu out as its very busy at the moment and our vans are always up and down the Motorways delivering.
This week we have delivery runs planned to Sunderland and Newcastle, Leicestershire and Norfolk and finally Wrexham and the North West then of course both vans to the South on Sunday.
Im not moaning this time of year is always busy until Christmas when we get a deserved 10 day or so break to recharge celebrate and then start all over again in Early January.
So to be sure I am here when you wish to visit us and see our great range of Gallery Fireplaces just contact me and make an appointment.
We do offer late night viewing for those people struggling to escape work just ring me to arrange.